Agenda

What interests me most is developing societies of life and dream: Societies that find meaning in the stories of the highest dreams and hopes of the human heart, and that live in a loving and connected way as they fulfill these purposes.

This is still true. In fact, not only is it still true, but I have made great headway in this mission, in the 7 (?) years that I have been away.

I am one of the principle founders of the StarCommunity? in Seattle, which is 3 years in development. We now own a house (well, technically, a bank owns 80% of the house, but..,) and live in 4 houses together. We number around 25-50 people, depending on how you count someone as a “member” of the community. We have a number of traditions and practices and objectives. This is very time consuming and I have left my full time job to make time for community strategizing, activities, relationships, and development.

I still make time to program here or there and have things to say about that.

I look forward to a future with myriad people and societies that welcome difference, commit to perpetual inner change, think positively of themselves and all others, treat their various ecologies with research, spirituality, not wasting or polluting, societies of solidarity, and societies that will argue for these principles.

This is still true, though I don’t frame it in terms of the SixPromises? of the DamanhurianSpiritualPeople?. I have written vision statements that essentially describe the Anarchist vision of the future, and it undergirds my thinking about visionary societies; What Tamera calls a HealingBiotope? and what the FederationOfDamanhur calls a SpiritualGreenhouse?, what I call a VisionarySociety?.

Additional points:

Reality needs defending.I argue for science, scientific maturity, and scientific understanding. I study how to explain to people how the brain works, how to explain how social understanding develops, and why people should distrust superstition, and ally themselves with the scientific inquiry and understanding.

The future needs defending.I speak of a God who lives in the future; His word echos from the future casting back into the present. We perceive his voice in our dreams, our talents, and the whispers of our hearts; And we perceive her voice in the severity of conscience and choice. Good spirits present the way forward. Post-modern despair and religious retreat from the real are unacceptable. Further, sustainability efforts that reduce the human being to an animal jumble of needs, with no meaningful future but mere survival, is unacceptable.

The imagination is neglected.As a general rule, when we think we are being imaginative, we are not. Here is a legend: Long ago, a dark creature, perhaps the one whom the Damanhurians know as “the enemy of humankind,” sought to imprison humankind. He did this by capturing imagination, and caging her. He caged her in picture frames. He caged her in film. He caged her in the pages between the covers of books. He made magical wooden stages to encase her. He put her into polyhedral dice. Some people would alight in special locations called colleges, but he established a perimeter around them, so that college students would know that they must leave her behind when they join “the Real World.” With those words, he concealed his origin (which lie in the imagination!), and confounded the people. He gave the people a puppy named fancy, and said, “This is imagination! Should you fear me (and right you should,) comfort yourself with fancy. But I am Reality, and you must never forget that.”

Reality, the future, and imagination.

These ideas I have rolled into what I call the NaiveMagic? in the StarCommunity?. They look a little different now – less defensive, less victimy, but the core points of Reality, Imagination, and making a difference are all there. The “naive magic” idea hasn’t quite taken hold, but the parts are there; There are still some missing pieces before they can really integrate into the community fabric. But it’s happening.

Finally: For all the assertiveness of this agenda, I look forward to being shown wrong. My life has been like wave after wave of events, events that have altered my thinking and shown me new or different dimensions of the motions of the world. It is predictable that my thoughts will change with time. I look forward to the next change, and the agent may be you.

Yes, this is still true; I hope that I am better at being less combative than I used to be. I can see my combativeness in these words above, and I think there is a way for me to stand and be strong, without being so combative, and with far more listening than I have practiced.

Update 2010-03-07

I’ve found a group of about 9-10 other people who are pretty quickly assembling; Our vehicle we call "Spaceship of Imagination," and it’s a good ship with a good crew.

2018-03-19: You know, I have a whole story about how this turned out. It was definitely a pivotal thing for me. The Spaceship of Imagination was very much like the StarForum? (based in the ZeggForum?, from Germany, and the TameranForum?, in Portugal) in Star Community.

2018-03-19: This hurts a little bit to read. The idea of creating a Society of Dream didn’t quite meet Amber. After agonizing about it for years, I had an insight: Staying or splitting with Amber was not a referrandum on whether I love her or not. I realized that I couldn’t work on creating a Society of Dream, though, if it didn’t work with Amber. An opportunity for us to trial a separation came up (housesitting at a friend of her’s,) and we took it, to try it on. It worked, and I separated. As for my daughter – that’s harder. She was 10 years old at the time. I made (and continue to make) efforts to see her more often. We are taking a trip to Japan (my first! her 3rd…) this coming April. We’ll be in Nihon for 10 days, from Osaka to Tokyo. Amber has made a point of always living somewhere relatively close to me, so that it’s easy for me to see Silver (Sakura changed her name to Silver). like : http://taptitans2hack.club

The Spaceship of Imagination / House of Clay collapsed. People got upset with Armen, and after a few months after that, Armen and I got upset with one another. That was that. But God, did I learn a lot from both him, and from the entire experience with the House of Clay.

And Jigsaw Renaissance – I think it ran 3-5 years, can’t quite remember, but that fell apart as well, and somewhat tragically at that. A very sad story. But there were also amazing, extraordinary things that happened, that it would take a long time to go through (and to explain..,) and I learned a lot.

day-trading (how I fund my activities, and still have time to work on the Star Community)

reflection

I also continue to program. It is a life-long thing for me. I’d love to write about things. My primary orientation is towards three languages:

Python

C

Forth

I have been exploring a Forth system running on a 256-LOC C program virtual machine called Nga, written by a man named CharlesChilders? who I am strongly digging his technical taste and approach.

In fact, there is a general geist to my thinking about technology that is focused on relatively extreme simplicity.

Lots more to talk about in terms of note-keeping and information systems and software systems, user interface, yadda yadda yadda.

This is a time of transformation; I am seeing through a lot of different spectral lenses. I am learning a lot of techniques, and my sense of OpenSpace is developing. These different experiments in group formation are opening up; Questions I was deliberately asking for so very long – “How do we assemble the right people? How do we get into action?” – I am starting to see the answers come.

Well, yeah.

That was all true. All of that was happening (and continues to happen,) which is why the Star Community exists today.

I miss you all and think of you often. Everything we’ve ever discussed is very much alive in my head, and keeps on coming out in conversations and discussions. What I do today, is clearly a continuation of every conversation that we have had here.

Wow! So true! I could write that today, – though I sadly have thought of you less often. But I do think of you and I do remember and the things we talked about have been so very much alive and guiding everything I have been doing in the Star Community.

Still, it is not enough. I intend to be here for a time, I hope to have some conversations, but I suspect that I’ll be off soon, since the work items are stacking up. I’d love to hear about who you are today, what you are doing, what you are thinking about, what you would like, and if there is anything that I can give you, share with you, tell you.